To say that gender is playing a big role in the 2016 presidential election would be an understatement. Aside from having the first female candidate of any major political party running for president, we also have an election season filled with discussion about the appearance of a certain Miss Universe, the stamina of a female candidate, and the objectification of women’s bodies. But how this election turns out come November will weigh most heavily on the voting power of women in the United States. An analysis by FiveThirtyEight found that there are two dramatically different outcomes in the race depending on whether only women or men vote. That’s because Hillary Clinton’s lead among women voters is significantly higher than Donald Trump’s.
On average, Clinton leads Trump by 15 percentage points among women, according to FiveThirtyEight. She trails him by 5 points among men. That means that if only women voted in the election, Clinton would win 458 electoral votes and Trump would get only 80, according to the FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast. That outcome is essentially flipped if the opposite were true and only men voted. In that scenario, Trump would come away with 350 electoral votes and Clinton would get 188.
As Nate Silver writes, our entire political climate would be drastically different if only one gender were able to vote. “But,” he added, “it seems fair to say that, if Trump loses the election, it will be because women voted against him.” And with the current political discussions going on, it’s hard to imagine women not voting.
Check out the full breakdown and electoral map forecast at FiveThirtyEight.
